Church among all of the other churches. Many Protestants might assert the preferability of Protestantism, for sure, but fewer zone in on the outright superiority of a specific denomination!
This sense I have was exemplified quite powerfully in a lengthy conversation I had after one of these RCIA sessions. As part of our parish’s program, we had an ‘RCIA team’ consisting of a priest, a deacon and several active lay members of our parish community. Our RCIA candidates, in my view, were most fortunate to be surrounded and supported by a group of fine Catholics who happened not to be members of the church’s official clergy. One particular couple who was deeply involved exemplified a life of deep commitment to Catholicism’s highest ideals having served the parish and the wider church in a variety of ways over the course of their life in their local church.
One night, our RCIA session centered on the sacraments and moved to the Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist, including the issue of what it means to receive the body and blood of Christ in Communion. As I had been actively involved in the teaching that evening, I had presented the group with my perspective that much of the alleged division among Catholics and Protestants on this question of Christ’s real presence is both overstated and misunderstood. This is a position to which you will be subjected as you move on through this book.
After this session, this gentleman on our team came up to me and, after saying how well he thought the evening went and how interesting the discussion was, proceeded to ask me this question: ‘Bob, were you in church a couple of weeks ago when Father preached about the Eucharist and Communion?’ I told him that I was away that weekend (actually, I think on that day off from church responsibilities I went to a Red Sox game!) and had not heard this particular homily. He then told me how good it was and how helpful it was to him in getting a better sense of the Catholic perspective on Communion.
He explained to me how ‘Father’ told the congregation that morning that if they were to see Communion celebrated in a Protestant church, they would notice a difference between what Catholics do with the leftover element of bread and what they would see at that particular church. He then explained how it was typical for Protestants to take whatever is left over and just throw it out and how the very act of taking this bread and placing it in the garbage shows the difference in Eucharistic theology. He contrasted this with the Catholic practice of the reserved sacrament whereby consecrated hosts or any other unleavened bread are placed in the tabernacle for future use or for bringing Communion to those unable to worship at church.
I told this man that, while I had not heard the entire homily, I did feel, based on what he was saying, that this good and experienced priest had oversimplified the distinction and had minimized the Protestant sense of profound respect for that which was ordained by Christ ... as stated in the Bible!! I then gave a different perspective on it, probably showing some evidence of my ‘Protestant’ tendencies indeed. But my point here is not to debate Eucharistic theology. It is instead to demonstrate how important it is to Catholics to draw that distinction which, in some way, exhibits the uniqueness and, as I said before, the primacy of Catholicism.
This tendency comes out in different ways. Since I left the Catholic Church and became a Protestant, as you can well imagine, I have had a lot of discussions with Catholics, especially those in whose parish I used to serve, around the question ‘Why?’ i.e. ‘Why did I leave?’ While most have been kind, in fact, the overwhelming majority, several think that I did a bad thing. One day I asked one of these critical individuals if he thought that Protestants had any chance to go to heaven. He said assuredly ‘Of course they do!’ What I discovered in reflecting upon that conversation was that he really meant that it’s OK for someone born Protestant to be Protestant, but there is something inherently wrong in someone ‘who has the true faith’ proceeding to turn around and give it up!
This all evinces itself in so many different ways indeed! Many Catholics operate under what I would label the ‘more principle’ in distinguishing their faith from that of their Protestant counterparts. This centrality of the Eucharist and what it is serves as a driving force behind such actively progressive Catholic organizations as Voice of the Faithful43 and CORPUS.44 In their literature, CORPUS, an organization of priests, many of whom have left active ministry to marry, argue that by not ordaining married men and moving toward the ordination of women, the church is in danger of ‘losing the Eucharist’ i.e. there will not be priests around to say Mass and Catholic access to this central act of worship will be limited.
This position, of course, is tied into a developed theology of what Catholics see as a sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the ‘power to consecrate the bread and wine’45 is conferred upon the priest. In this example, there is ‘more’ in the ordained Catholic priesthood than one might find in the clergy of other Christian denominations. In Catholicism, Holy Orders is one of the seven sacraments and it is significant to many Catholics that they can identify seven as opposed to the Protestant two, which in some denominations are not even described as sacraments, identified instead as something strangely labeled an ‘ordinance of the church.’46 In Catholicism, marriage is more than a rite. It is a sacrament. Churches are more than some of those Protestant meetinghouses. They are places where you can go in, sit before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in that tabernacle and quietly pray. Mass is ‘more’ than just a service where you will sing hymns and hear a sermon. At Mass, which is actually available in many Catholic churches seven days a week (used to be all, before the priest shortage!), you can get all of those benefits and then even get to receive Jesus too!
It is my firm contention that there is enormous room for healthy and conciliatory dialogue between Protestants and Catholics on these matters. I am firmly convinced that there is significant common ground. As one example, I am quite certain that if you put a committed Catholic married couple in conversation with a Protestant married couple and asked them to talk about their love and their long term relationship, in essence they would be talking about the same thing. Whether it fell on the official list of seven sacraments or not would be far less important than the actual nature of the relationship. Would not both be living out their calling to love God through a committed love to the other person? As a Catholic Permanent Deacon, I officiated at many marriage ceremonies. As a Protestant clergyperson, I have done the same. There is no difference in how I approach the service or the message I deliver from what I said back then in my Catholic days. Some of the language of the Church’s official rite may be different with the Catholic ritual explicitly using the word ‘sacrament’ but the heart and the essence of the matter, in my honest view, is really the same.47 Likewise, some of the most moving and reverential Communion experiences I have had occurred in Protestant worship services. On the other hand, there have been times when I felt an ‘assembly line’ feel to the practice of receiving the little wafer at some Catholic Masses.
In saying this, I am NOT contending that the Catholic approach to Eucharist promotes the assembly line model. In fact, distinguished Catholic liturgists have done magnificent work in helping Catholic presiders at Mass lead worship experiences which are more attentive to the dignity of the Last Supper which the Eucharistic celebration makes present.48
Through these examples I have given and by delving into some of the historical background which explain how these examples have come to be, I have been attempting to express a matter of grave concern: There is an incredible lack of understanding among Catholics and Protestants about who lives in that other ecclesiastical house and about what’s really happening over on that other side of the street . Likewise, there is a dangerous misunderstanding among us about the depth and the breadth of our own traditions, whether they be Protestant or Catholic. We need to move beyond this. We need to get it right so that we can teach it right. We need to teach our church tradition and the broader Christian tradition correctly so that we can pass it along responsibly both to our children and to all who walk through the doors of our respective churches seeking something that will keep their lives grounded and imbued with meaning! We need to get it right so that we can pray and work with other Christians, so that our children can see
